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In the international world of ballet, few companies rank higher than San Francisco Ballet. A readers' poll conducted last year by Dance Europe magazine named San Francisco Ballet "Company of the Year," the first time a non-European company has taken that honor. In 2004, the company won its first Laurence Olivier Award for its fall season at Sadler's Wells Theatre in London.

In 2008, San Francisco Ballet celebrates its 75th season. The oldest professional ballet company in America was founded in 1933 to train dancers to appear in opera productions. After separating from the opera, it took the name San Francisco Ballet in 1942. Headed by brothers William, Lew and Harold Christensen, the company made its mark early by staging the first full-length American productions of Swan Lake (1940) and Nutcracker (1944).

The Company moved to the War Memorial Opera House in 1972, and the following year, Michael Smuin was appointed associate artistic director. In 1981, Smuin's The Tempest was nominated for three Emmy Awards; and in 1984, Smuin received an Emmy Award for Choreography for the "Great Performances�Dance in America" national broadcast of A Song for Dead Warriors.

Helgi Tomasson's arrived as artistic director in 1985 - the beginning of a new era. Like Lew Christensen, Tomasson had been a leading dancer for the most important ballet choreographer of the 20th century, George Balanchine. He has since staged full-length productions of many classics, including Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, Romeo & Juliet, Giselle, and a critically acclaimed new Nutcracker in 2004.

The San Francisco Ballet School attracts students from around the world, training approximately 350 annually.

Learn more about the ballet and its 75th Anniversary Season schedule by visiting www.sfballet.org.

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Their voices have been heard around the world, but San Francisco heard them first! Sylvia McNair, Anna Netrebko, Patricia Racette, Ruth Ann Swenson, Carol Vaness, Deborah Voigt, Joyce DiDonato, Susan Graham, Dolora Zajick, Brian Asawa, Gary Lakes, Kurt Streit, Jess Thomas, Rolando Villaz�n, Thomas Hampson and Patrick Summers, are just some of the graduates of the Merola Opera Program, one of the oldest and most prestigious opera training programs in the United States. For 50 years, this program has nurtured and developed some of the greatest professional voices on the operatic stage.

San Francisco Opera General Director Kurt Herbert Adler established the program in honor of his predecessor, Gaetano Merola. Two of those initial trainees were Modesto-born Harve Presnell, who went on to Broadway fame and film, and the late Jess Thomas, who went from Merola to a 15-year career with the Metropolitan Opera.

Merola annually offers opportunities for 30 international students to study and participate in master classes with established professionals. The summer program trains intensively in operatic repertory, languages, diction, acting and movement and runs for 12 weeks for apprentice coaches and 11 weeks for singers and the apprentice stage director.

More about the Merola Opera Program is available at www.merola.org.

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"Founded in 1957 and now presented by the San Francisco Film Society (SFFS), the San Francisco Film Festival is the longest running film festival in the Americas, and this year celebrates its 50th anniversary. Held each spring for two weeks, the festival is an extraordinary showcase of cinematic discovery and innovation, hosting some 200 films and 100 filmmakers, and presenting nearly two dozen awards for cinematic excellence.

If the films are the main feature, the honorees, film stars and producers/directors are the icing on the festival cake. The names of the honored are legendary: Truman Capote, Michelangelo Antonioni, Bette Davis, Alec Guinness, John Huston, Mary Pickford, Jack Nicholson, Jack Lemmon, David Lean, Akira Kurosawa, Bernardo Bertolucci, Burt Lancaster, and both Francis Ford and Sofia Coppola. The list is a compendium of film greats.

The SFFS has been witness to historical drama as well: In 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis almost cancelled out the appearance of Soviet filmmakers, who attended at the last minute with the withdrawal of the missiles. In 1984, attendees danced in the aisles for the world premiere of Stop Making Sense, which featured the band, Talking Heads.

The Film Society also presents the annual New Italian Cinema series and the annual San Francisco International Animation Festival.

Learn more about the San Francisco Film Society at www.sffs.org.

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It was an auspicious start for a fledging theater company; January 1967 and Tony Award-winning actor, Rene Auberjonois, appeared in Moli�re's Tartuffe, the first production of the recently established American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.). Founding Artistic Director William Ball envisioned a company with "a lively theatrical style, full of energy, imagination, wonder and a belief in the glory of humankind. " Now entering its 41st year, there is no doubt that A.C.T. has realized his vision.

Staging outstanding theater performances since 1996 at the renovated American Conservatory Theater (formerly The Geary), A.C.T.'s list of conservatory alumni is a "Who's Who" of theater and film, including Danny Glover, Annette Bening, Denzel Washington, Benjamin Bratt, Elizabeth Banks, Winona Ryder, and recent Tony Award winner, Anika Noni Rose. The company solidified its national and international reputation in the 70s, winning the 1979 Tony Award for outstanding theater performance and training.

During the past three decades, more than 300 A.C.T. productions have been performed to a combined audience of seven million people. Today, under the leadership of Artistic Director Carey Perloff and Executive Director Heather Kitchen, A.C.T.'s performance, education, and outreach programs reach more than 250,000 people in the San Francisco Bay Area each year.

Learn more about A.C.T. at www.act-sf.org.

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"Anarchist Evening at the Magic Theatre For Madmen Only Price of Admission Your Mind."

Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf was the inspiration for the Magic Theatre, founded by John Lion in Berkeley in 1967. Now one of the most prominent theatres in the nation, it is solely dedicated to the development and production of new plays.

In the 40 years since its inception, the Magic has premiered over 250 works. Its plays and playwrights have won two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama, given to Sam Shepard for Buried Child in 1979 and to Nilo Cruz in 2003 for Anna in the Tropics, and 10 Obie Awards including Best New Play for Fool for Love and Buried Child by Sam Shepard and Josephine the Mouse Singer by Michael McClure. Michelle Carter has won two PEN-West Award for Drama, for Ted Kaczynski Killed People with Bombs and Hillary and Soon-Yi Shop for Ties. Other awards include the Kennedy Center Award, numerous Bay Area Critics Circle Awards, the Los Angeles Drama-Logue Award, and the NAACP Image Award.

This stellar roster affirms MAGIC Theatre's mission: giving voice to playwrights, both emerging and established, and developing and promoting the work of theatre artists.

To learn more about Magic Theatre and its current season, please visit www.magictheatre.org.

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It has performed before mayors and even a queen, appeared on world stages, and on November 2, will perform for Standing Ovations. It is the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra (SFSYO), now in its 25th anniversary season and recognized around the globe as one of the finest youth orchestras in the world.

Founded in 1981 to provide free orchestral training to young musicians at the pre-professional level, more than 100 diverse musicians, ranging in age from 12 to 21, are chosen from over 300 applicants in annual auditions. The SFSYO rehearses and performs under the direction of the San Francisco Symphony's Resident Conductor and Wattis Foundation Music Director of the Youth Orchestra, Benjamin Shwartz.

As part of the SFSYO's innovative training program, members of SFSYO present Peter and the Wolf concerts, collaborating with a wide range of artists and local celebrities, such as Robin Williams, Sid Caesar, Danny Glover, Geoff Hoyle, Sharon Stone, Rita Moreno, Linda Ronstadt and Bobby McFerrin, San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen, Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart, and Michael Tilson Thomas.

Since its first "1986" European Tour in 1986, the SFSYO has been awarded the world's highest honors, performed at the most prestigious festivals, and received invitations to play in Asia's and Europe's finest concert halls, including the Cit� de la Musique in Paris and the Dvor�k Hall in Prague.

Find out more about the SFYSO at www.sfsymphony.org.

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The beat and rhythms are unmistakable. When the music and dancing begin, SFJAZZ is on the scene.

First identified as "Jazz in the City," the organization transformed from a music presenter to a year-round arts institution in 1999. When the new SFJAZZ debuted its Spring Season in 2000, the New York Times wrote it was "something New Yorkers could get jealous about."

Now in its 25th year, its signature presentation is the San Francisco Jazz Festival, hailed by the London Observer, as "the best jazz festival in the world." Its composite program of concerts covers the classic to the avant-garde, and it is the place to see the legends of today and meet the rising stars of tomorrow.

Two of its most esteemed programs are the SFJAZZ Collective, an all-star ensemble launched in 2004 to perform new works and new compositions by each of its eight Collective members, and the SFJAZZ High School All-Stars. Selected annually in a nationwide search, the All-Stars were finalists in 2002 and 2003 at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Essentially Ellington Competition. Attendees at Standing Ovations on November 2 will have the pleasure of hearing the All-Stars perform. "These kids are amazing," wrote the San Jose Mercury News. "Jazz has a future!"

In addition to fall festival and the spring season, SFJAZZ also presents a series of free summer concerts around San Francisco with a wide array of styles from jazz to Latin rhythms to swing, blues and vocals.

For the SFJAZZ schedule, visit www.sfjazz.org.